


Personal Notes (23) Say that again...

by longhairshortfuse



Series: Carlos's Secret Diary [23]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Mountains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-04
Updated: 2014-06-04
Packaged: 2018-02-03 09:13:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1739249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longhairshortfuse/pseuds/longhairshortfuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carlos is learning to be a better boyfriend. And Cecil does have a nice voice, doesn't he?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Personal Notes (23) Say that again...

**Author's Note:**

> Just some fluff. I like fluff.

Surprisingly, there has been a u-turn from the City Council. They have decided that mountains do, in fact, exist. I'm glad, it means maybe I can wear my Stone Mountain tee from years ago when I went on a study tour to Georgia. The name always struck me as odd, I mean what else would a mountain be made from? I wore it once to bed to wind up Cecil. He made me take it off again, which was okay too.

There have been widespread reports of sightings of a mountain with a red blinking light on top of it. This mountain is situated in a flood plain strewn with bones. This is unlikely. Not the strewn with bones part, that is very much in keeping with Night Vale, but the reported existence of a flood plain in this unrelenting desert made me want to check Ell's mass hallucination monitor for a different blinking red light. 

I would have loved to be able to study this mirage further, and investigate the alleged masked army that is marching towards us, but I promised to show Cecil that I can delegate science work and spend time with him. So I suppressed my inner control-freak and sent Gio and Estrella. Gio seems to know how this place works, he's the only one of the original team of postgrads left, and Estrella is an expert in vision sciences and perception. I worried a bit about sending Estrella, she has not been here long and has yet to develop her full survival instinct.

Cecil came round for dinner after his show. I tidied up and got some armagnac (no such thing as useless information) and I planned to make pasta with olive oil, garlic and chili because that only takes ten minutes and it's easy. Also I know he likes pasta and misses it because of the wheat and wheat by product ban and I had some sent in hidden deep in a box of reagent bottles with "Explosive", "Biohazard" and "Danger of death" hazard warning labels on it. 

I rarely cook, on my own I'll eat ready meals from the microwave or order take out. Ell calls my cooking repertoire "pasta with sludge". I'd ask her advice but she's worse than I am, she would starve without a can opener. When we were students, we held a dinner party for her parents once. It did not go well. The food stretched the definition of "edible" to its elastic yield point and once they found out we were not a couple the conversation dried up. Purgatory. At least Hell would have had some warmth. Cecil and I have never spoken about our families. I know he has a sister and a niece. I wonder if he'll introduce us sometime? I have not mentioned that I have seen the woman whose phenotype shows clearly that she shares much of his genotype.

The faceless old woman who secretly lives in your home, my home too I conclude, announced on Cecil's show that she liked altering written works, replacing books with other books or rearranging the words. I checked my old lab notes, after sweeping a covert surveillance device detector around the apartment first and removing all the listening devices and miniature cameras. I put some music on loud in case I had missed any bugs. I removed the loose panel from behind the shower and carefully slid out the ziplock bag that contained my notes.

The Faceless Old Woman is a diffuse energy field that sometimes manifests as a figure, but seems unable to fix on a particular arrangement of facial features. I have not investigated her fully, it seemed rude to pry and when I once asked a question she did not like I had to scramble for the fire extinguisher and she glued the drawer by the bed shut. Clearly she has some experience in temporal anomalies because there was one change in my notebook. It was both trivial and so incredibly significant that I almost fell over. One letter. One variable. One solution. I put the notebook back, looked at the flicker of something on the ceiling just out of sight and said thank you. I will move it to a new hiding place later before the cleaner comes in and replaces all the surveillance devices. The cleaner and I have a game. She bugs the apartment, I find the bugs and leave a note to tell her how many I found. If I find all of them, I get points. If I don't, she does. So far we're about even.

I had an argument with the local community college principal this morning. The college archaeologist, Professor Kip who has helped me out a couple of times when we have found unidentifiable remains, claimed correctly that humans are the result of evolution. This runs counter to the college science curriculum which states that humans were created by selective breeding with alien DNA. The college president threatened to fire Kip for his "fringe views" so I stepped in to defend him. He still has his job, but only because he promised to stick to the curriculum. I wonder how Night Vale will ever progress with such appalling pseudoscience and nonsense drip-fed to its youth. Cecil also spoke to the college president, a rotund woman called Sultan. On his show he called her a "river rock" which made me snort coffee over my notes. He can be delightfully acerbic sometimes. 

Later, as he entered my apartment, Cecil handed me a caricature Sultan had drawn of him and was not pleased when I showed amusement instead of indignation. He said it wasn't at all accurate and I agreed, pointing to one prominent feature and saying, "true, _that_ bit isn't really as big as _that_." He huffed, stopped speaking to me and held out for eight minutes while I listed all the reasons that I wanted to hear his voice. He gave in, giggling when I whispered in his ear, "during the traffic report your silky voice makes me want to ejaculate in my underwear". 

He hit me with a cushion then started commenting on what I was doing, in his radio voice.  
"Carlos, dear Carlos, with his beautiful hair so mussed up, is sitting beside me."  
"Listeners, my favourite scientist is picking up a cushion and brandishing it above his head in a most alarming ma _ooommfff_ "  
"Night Vale's most eminent scientist is pulling my tie, causing me to move toward him."  
I stopped him with a kiss. A short one then longer, removing Cecil's tie. I paused to unfasten the top two buttons of his work shirt so that I could kiss his neck.  
"Ladies and gentlemen, your loyal radio host is going to pass out with hunger if not fed soon."

I kissed him again and got up to make dinner. While I was frying the garlic and chili, Cecil asked about the flood plain. I told him what Gio and Estrella had reported back to me, that it was a mirage that should disappear when the sun goes down but the army was real. Estrella reported that the army was en route elsewhere and would only stop in Night Vale for some much needed downtime.

Cecil went into my bedroom to change out of his suit and reappeared wearing sweatpants and a Spiderwolves teeshirt. I love it that my Cecil has a drawer in my bedroom and space in my wardrobe. We slouched together on the sofa, watched "Breaking Bad" until Cecil made me stop criticising the chemistry, ate pasta and drank Chardonnay but left the armagnac alone after deciding that we were not ready to face each other's hangovers. I asked Cecil to talk to me in his radio voice again. He resumed commentary:

"My lovely Carlos is in the kitchen looking despondently at the washing up. This radio announcer would be more than willing to help if suitably persuaded."  
I looked over at him, flashed a smile and flicked my hair out of my eyes, blew a kiss.  
"Listeners, I am going to rise from this sofa to rescue my boyfriend from domestic drudgery." 

He stood behind me as I put the last item on the rack to dry. I turned to face him and he swept my hair back with both hands before kissing me. I put my arms around his waist to hold him close. I told Cecil that his radio voice was turning me on. He continued, closer and quieter but still unmistakably in his deliberate, professional tone, "Carlos enjoys listening to my voice. I wonder, listeners, how he would react if I tell him exactly what I am planning to do with him this evening?" 

There was no chance of misinterpreting my reaction.


End file.
